“And all the blame goes to…”: Sisyphus, Kerry and the Failure of “Peace” Negotiations

Two articles and two blogposts have just appeared that tackle the failed peace negotiations conducted by John Kerry during the second Obama Administration. One, by a participant (with a long history of participation in these efforts going back to 1993), “Inside the Black Box of Israeli-Palestinian Talks” by Michael Herzog, in American Interest, and the other, a strong critique of the first piece, by Raphael Ahren, the diplomatic correspondent of the Times of Israel, and two extensive blogposts, by Yaacov Lozowick, and David Gerstman at Legal Insurrection that criticize the widespread lack of interest of the mainstream media on this revealing text, in part, they suspect, because it doesn’t indict Bibi.

Like most diplomatic issues written by negotiators, one has to read between the lines at what is not said. The issues here are crucial, since much of the logic that this information undermines, lies at the heart of Kerry’s final maneuvers to condemn the settlements as the roadblock to peace, and the vast international consensus – diplomatic and journalistic – that stand behind him.

For Herzog, there’s enough blame to go around:

All parties made mistakes, each exacerbating the others’ and contributing to a negative dynamic.

For Ahrens, Herzog’s piece is a “politely devastating critique” that “skewers Kerry for dooming the peace talks.”

What strikes me in reading Herzog is how much – despite his explicit conclusions – he provides an abundance of clear evidence for the fact that (as Lozowick also notes) the real reason the negotiations failed is because the Palestinians never had any intention of negotiating. So blaming Kerry (or Bibi) for “dooming the peace talks,” is something like blaming a hospital emergency team for blowing the resuscitation of a mannequin.

If there’s blame to apportion here it’s a) the Palestinians for never negotiating in good faith, and b) the Americans, especially Kerry, for blaming Israel for killing the mannequin, and c) the Israelis like Herzog for never catching on including (apparently) still now.

In reviewing this material, let me lay out what I think were the negotiating strategies of the sides for the last 25 years, a perspective repeatedly borne out by events, including the information in Herzog’s article:

(NB: I’m a medievalist, trained to piece together fragments of evidence into a larger picture. When the CIA launched after the WWII they tapped medievalists (including one of my professor, Joseph Strayer, specifically because of this training. So maybe I see more because I know less. Certainly, in these matters, I am far from familiar with the details.)

The Americans believed (to a man/woman?) that if only they could get the Palestinians and Israelis to agree on a deal that gave the Palestinians a state on the other side of the “’67 borders,” that would bring peace and solve a whole bunch of problems in the Middle East – linkage – including saving Israel from deciding between democratic or apartheid. They formally adopted a cognitively egocentric notion that the Palestinians really wanted a state, but needed to get the best possible deal to “sell it” to their own people. The way to get it was to pressure the Israelis to make concessions that would bring the Israelis into (what they imagined was) “the zone of possible agreement [between Israelis and Palestinians]” (Indyk), and then go to the Palestinians with a great deal (from the US point of view), and thereby achieve the holy grail of Nobel Peace Prizes, the deal that really is so obvious, you should be able to solve it with an email.

The American position represents a dogmatic extension of Oslo Logic after it blew up in Israel’s face in 2000 (Y2K Mind). It takes as a given that the Palestinians will accept a deal +/- on the “1967 borders,” but they can’t concede too much or they’ll lose face with their people. Applying that “reading” to the negotiations since 2000 (Bush/Condoleezza, Obama/Clinton/Kerry) has a) guaranteed US and Israeli failure, b) guaranteed Palestinian and Jihadi success. Once committed to the paradigm and its expectations, the US was incapable of realizing they were being played.

The Israelis wanted to appease the Americans, and I suspect most of the actual negotiators (Herzog/Livni) agree with the American position that a) peace is urgently needed, and b) believe peace is within their grasp, like in 20o0… “so close.” (Certainly Herzog shows no awareness of what’s available at PalWatch or MEMRI on Palestinian attitudes off the negotiating record.) Because they do want a deal soon for fear of the demographic timebomb, the Israelis are ready to make many of concessions, both short-term (slowdown of settlement activity, release of prisoners) and long-term (division of Jerusalem).

But at the same time they know that they have limits to their concessions, not only on some key issues like refugee return and how Jerusalem is divide (already a pocketed concession), but also the damage to their position from making unreciprocated concessions, increasing the odds that this “peace deal” too will blow up in the face of the conceding side. Thus the Israelis fight over every detail to protect themselves from likely attacks from an eventual Palestinian state, while still making concessions to move the process along, to get, as even Indyk admitted they had, into the zone of possible agreement. Herzog expresses his confidence in the Palestinian’s commitment to finding a solution, despite all the counter-evidence, with a credulous humanitarian credo:

But whoever knows the issues in-depth realizes how crucial they are to both sides’ future. And those of us who have spent years at the negotiating table know how arduous and excruciating a journey is required of both sides if they are to find a sustainable balance encompassing all core issues (italics mine).

That “whoever” who “knows” does not include the current crop of Palestinian “leaders” and their negotiators. On the contrary they’re not at all interested in finding a sustainable balance. No arduous journeys for them.

Bibi’s Strategy:

Take it seriously.

Fight every detail to get the best acceptable deal,

Show good faith, accede wherever possible to American demands

Ask for reciprocity.

Put really good people to work on it, and follow the details closely.

Hope that, if/when things fail, they won’t get blamed.

The Palestinians are nowhere near the American’s “zone of possibility.” As long as they can pretend to the cognitive egocentrics on the other side that they are near, ready, desirous of a deal, however, negotiators will play along pretending to accept the notion of a positive-sum, give and take, deal. Indeed they will indignantly rebuke any challenge to their sincerity.

Erekat argued that this was natural given in his view Abbas’ moderate positions: “He doesn’t need to convince Abbas. Abbas accepts the two-state solution [sic], recognizes Israel [sic] and does not build settlements [alas! He should be building settlements for Palestinian Refugees stuck in camps].”

But they know that their job is to make the process as difficult as possible, to give the impression they’ll make concessions without making any real concessions (eg their phony recognition of Israel). They want above all not to reach an agreement, without being blamed for the failure of negotiations. If, in the process, they can use the Americans to get unreciprocated concessions, great. The US wants them so badly to participate that the Palestinians can make just “sitting down to negotiate” a major concession on their part to match say, Israelis releasing prisoners. If they get blamed, go nuts:

The thing that really drove [Abbas] nuts,” Ashrawi relates, “is that they blamed him for the talks’ collapse. In his view, it’s all the Israelis’ — and the Americans’ — fault.”

The Palestinians are in no hurry because the suffering of their people, as long as Israel can be blamed, is a bargaining chip (like a non-funny remake of Blazing Saddles, “don’t no one come near or I’ll shoot this nigger”). They feel no need to make any actual concessions to Israel (that they wouldn’t carry through on anyway) because they feel time is on their side and they can wait. They know that Israel won’t kick the Palestinians out and can’t digest them; that the situation is a timebomb of ethnic warfare which will destroy everyone. (That’s why some Palestinians call for nuking the whole area.) And, anyway, the negotiator’s job is not to create a Palestinian state (pace “international opinion”), but to destroy an Israeli state. If they deviate from that task, if they make a deal with the Israelis, they’d lose face, be accused of betraying the sacred Arab-Muslim cause, and have tea with Sadat.

So they’re willing to “play along” with negotiations as long as the US pressures Israel. Abbas claims his side had “already exhausted its ability to be flexible in past years and therefore that the main onus was not on him.” If the US can force deeply wounding concessions (Green Line including East Jerusalem) on Israel, then maybe they can appease the Jihadis whom they honor in Arabic, by assuring them this is a major step in the “Two Phase Plan” for the destruction of Israel. If they can’t, they can’t risk the humiliation of agreeing to accept a state of free infidels in Dar al Islam, so they’ll walk away from the table and brag to their Jihadis about how they said “No,” to the mighty Americans.

Abbas’ strategy:

insist on settlements as main problem and let Western cognitive egocentrists think you mean the Green Line not the shore line;

avoid being involved in negotiations as long as possible;

refuse any deal, avoid even responding to any deal;

negotiate on other tracks (Hamas, International Community), for the time the talks “fail” (i.e., the moment pressure is put on them);

blame Israeli settlements for the failure and get outraged when criticized.

***

It’s understandable that both Herzog and Kerry, who apparently put enormous effort into the Sisyphean task, might not want to recognize the obvious, that it was fruitless from the start: there never was the remotest chance that the negotiations would succeed; on the contrary, as long as they went, US negotiators were being systematically (ab)used by Abbas and his team, and Kerry and his tam of Y2KMinders were their perfect patsies. It was another replay of 1993-2000, except this time it was Abbas who played the West for fools; Bibi who was not as foolish as Barak; and Kerry who was infinitely nastier in failure than Clinton. But now, as then, the big loser is civil polities and progressive hopes.

Herzog occasionally allows us to see the reality he does not want to admit: speaking of one more excuse from Erekat, he notes:

His statement succinctly reflects the Palestinian mindset I have witnessed for years. It is as if negotiations are simply about exacting what Palestinians perceive to be their rights, rather than engaging in a two-way give-and take.

As we say in Boston, “light dawns over Marblehead.” Kerry encouraged the Palestinians to think they could succeed in this strategy, by making a quid pro quo of Israel releasing four groups of prisoners in exchange for the Palestinians not going to the UN and other international bodies to seek statehood behind Israel’s back, but agree, without even having to sit down with the Israelis, to “continue negotiations.” As Herzog puts it so delicately:

For Israelis, the idea of “paying” the Palestinians merely to get them to sit down and negotiate was problematic from the start. But Israel ultimately accepted the argument that this could help Abbas garner much-needed Palestinian public support for the process and fend off domestic pressure to further internationalize the conflict.

In other words, the Israelis accepted the Palestinian claim that they needed this for their credibility, when what that meant was maintaining their credible commitment – despite their negotiations and their seeming concessions to Israel – among a larger leadership and public they have constantly primed for the destruction of Israel.

Palestinians 1, US and Israel -1.

The principle excuse the Palestinians used to avoid negotiating was “the settlements,” and Kerry bought it.

The U.S. side complained about the volume of approvals, claiming it was undermining Palestinian trust in the process and noting that the distinction between construction and long-term planning does not exist in Palestinian eyes. Kerry began to press for significant restraint in the future.

Kerry believed “the settlements” were the central bone of contention (especially the ones beyond what he thought was a “zone of possible agreement,”). In so doing, he accepted Palestinian hostility to Jewish settlements, without asking why PA TV teaches children that Tel Aviv is a settlement. After all, in his memoir on the Oslo failure, Dennis Ross ruefully admits that while he negotiated, Arafat did nothing to prepare his people for peace… au contraire! So why the gullibility now?

Ultimately, extensive settlement activity, especially outside the major settlement blocs adjacent to the pre-’67 lines—which retain security significance, enjoy wide consensus in Israel, and are generally understood (including by Palestinians) to be part of Israel in any future deal—erodes Israel’s command of the moral high ground. In the eyes of much of the world, it overshadows whatever investment, however significant, Israel actually makes in the peace process.

Herzog shares Ross/Kerry/Indyk’s Y2K Mind: he thinks the Palestinians have already accepted that they will not get all “67 borders” (right down to the Mamila Mall). People who take this position don’t even take seriously “Occupation” in it’s Green Line meaning for Palestinians. There’s no actual flexibility even on this. The Palestinians play ya’ani: tell them vaguely what they want to hear.

Herzog nevertheless, whether he thinks it’s fair or not, agrees that this assessment means Israel loses the “high moral ground” and doesn’t get the credit it deserves. Apparently it doesn’t matter if the world is wrong. Their “mistake” is a [constructed] “reality” with which Israel must deal by accepting it [rather than deconstructing it].

But Herzog then disagrees with Indyk, formal adherent of the Occupation School.

I doubt that even a full settlement freeze would have salvaged these talks; more compelling causes determined their outcome.

Look! the mannequin lives! Alas that it couldn’t be saved.

Palestinians +2 USA -2 Israel -4

The US did not engage with the Palestinians, but instead spent almost all their time trying to get Israeli concessions. In part this was because, according to one US official confiding in Ha-aretz reporter Barack Ravid,

[They] felt closer to the Palestinians on most issues, [and] believed greater effort was required to move Netanyahu.

So in other words, the US’s notion of a fair deal basically accepted that the Palestinians were already in the zone of possible agreement, and the hard work was pushing the Israelis. Apparently no doubt about Palestinian intentions, just as the Palestinians want. So no efforts on the part of the US delegation to the Palestinians to make sure they were in the zoneon issues like: right of return, Jewish quarter of Jerusalem, incitement to hatred and genocide, idolization of “martyrs” who kill themselves to make Jews bleed. That can all wait till when we, the US, get the Palestinians (what we think is a really good deal). Then, we’re sure they’ll be reasonable.

Why the Israelis agreed to do so is not clear, but one can imagine the pressure. Interestingly, after stating that concession by the Israeli team, Herzog makes some revealing remarks.

Israelis preferred to make progress in the Israel-U.S. deliberations before the U.S. side engaged the Palestinians on specific texts, while the Palestinians expected the U.S. side to extract Israeli concessions before coming to them. The Palestinians may have also enjoyed sitting back and watching the Israeli and U.S. governments argue heatedly over the issue of security.

May? Apparently Marblehead’s still dimly lit. Early dawn maybe? Meantime no one was pressuring the Palestinians to do anything. The money they take from US to support the families of suicide “martyrs” is a matter of record; the contents of their public media as well. Did anyone in the US delegation ask about the Ross lament: are they preparing their people for peace or war? Not to ask that question after 2000, reflects the manacles of Y2K Mind. You mean, they’re not ready for peace? What are you, a racist?

Indeed, it was worse than the Israelis thought:

Several weeks into this phase we were astonished to learn that the U.S. side had not engaged Abu Mazen (having generally spent little time with the Palestinian side in this phase).

Even though the Israelis understood most of the work was being done with them – again, why? – they were shocked to find out how little the US had been dealing with the Palestinians. In reality, the US was only pushing them to stay engaged and hold off international moves that would circumvent negotiations.

When the crunch came and Palestinians needed to make concessions, as before, the Palestinians dropped out. Herzog cites Indyk (!) about how “Abu Mazen ‘shut down’ and ‘checked out of negotiations’ as the end of the negotiating period drew closer, and he placed most of the blame for this on Israeli settlement activity during negotiations.

Things came to a head on February 19, 2014, when Kerry met Abu Mazen in Paris. By then, the U.S.-Israel talks were progressing, but Abu Mazen had “shut down.” He rejected out of hand the proposed U.S. framework. The U.S. side now focused most of its efforts on moving Abbas. It was too little too late. Abbas appeared no longer interested or invested in the process.

What on earth gave the impression he ever was? That he was willing to wait for the Israelis to be delivered on a platter by the US who, in their folly, “felt closer to the Palestinians.” That as soon as it was clear he wouldn’t get what he wanted without making concessions, he wouldn’t turn away? At what point ever was he invested in the process? On the contrary, as Ben Birnbaum and Amir Tibon report, Abbas threw a fit with Kerry on February 19 in Paris.

“Why is Abu Mazen [a nickname for Abbas] so angry with me?” Kerry asked lead Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat the next morning. “I barely said a word, and he started saying, ‘I cannot accept this.'”

This can only be a surprise to someone who thought Abbas was “in the game” as it were. Same thing apparently happened to Obama in Saudi Arabia, and he apparently didn’t learn a thing. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me ten times and I’m still surprised? …shame and ruin on me and anyone I drag with me. #ProlepticDhimmitude.

The US gave every reason to Abbas to believe that he would get what he wanted. A month later Abbas came to the White House to meet with Obama, where the US made further promises and concessions to the guy playing them for fools:

[Obama offered him] new ideas and formulations that departed from traditional official U.S. positions and tilted toward his positions (including an explicit confirmation of a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem and equivalent land swaps), and that were never shared with Israel.

In other words, the Americans made unauthorized concessions to Abbas in response to his rejection – shades of high-school dating! – which would have greatly surprised the Israelis, who had taken the details most seriously. This confirms Ravid’s account: the Americans were prisoner of their own fantasy, that the Palestinians were already in the zone of possible agreement. We all get what the final exchange will look like (thinks Y2KMind, and so do the Palestinians. Could the Palestinians not be thinking of a positive-sum exchange but rather a hard zero-sum combat?

Unthinkable! Then all this would be in vain.

As Yaakov Lozowick notes in his blogpost, discussing this American belief that they and the Palestinians were already there:

Except, of course, the Palestinian positions were never what Kerry thought they were, which is why, irrespective of how much Netanyahu grudgingly moved, no agreement was within reach at any moment. If you read too much of the New York Times and not enough of the Palestinian sources [i.e., visit MEMRI and PMW], you’ll end up believing in a reality that doesn’t exist.

Abbas walks away from negotiations again.

What was Abbas response to this American gesture offering on behalf of the Israelis unreciprocated concessions they hadn’t made and wouldn’t make? According to Herzog:

He avoided answering and pleaded for time to ponder. He was given until March 25. To this day (as with his still-pending response to Olmert’s offer of 2008), he has not provided a response.

So why did Abu Mazen shut down? There is probably more than one explanation. Not really. However, everything I know, including from several people with intimate knowledge of Abu Mazen’s thinking, indicates that the main reason lies in his unmet expectations that the U.S. side would deliver him an acceptable deal (i.e., his maximal negotiating demands) by pressuring Israel. Abbas entered the process with low expectations of Netanyahu (acceding to what he wanted), yet we thought he expected or was led to believe that the U.S. side would produce a well-designed process, including significant Israeli flexibility/concessions, which would fall within his zone of a possible agreement (which is still extremely hard to reconcile with Israel’s, as manifested in the long history of bilateral negotiations) because the Palestinians are many leagues distant from that imagined “zone”. It seems Abbas ultimately expected to receive a deal he could subscribe to and defend internally, i.e., using his people’s carefully cultivated intransigence as an excuse for demanding unreciprocated concessions. He believed that the Palestinian side had already exhausted its ability to be flexible in past years, when they made no substantive concessions, and therefore that the main onus was not on him, according to the principle, “It’s the Israelis fault.”. He was increasingly disappointed when, after the U.S. side assumed active leadership of the substantive talks through the formal channel, discrepancies (described throughout this article) emerged between what each of the parties was told by and expected from the U.S. mediators, who had been telling both sides different things just to keep the negotiations alive. When Israel delayed the release of the fourth tranche of prisoners because the Palestinians had shown no good will or concessions, he told those around him: “If the U.S. can’t get Israel to release them, how can they get me Jerusalem?” – a perfect expression of his expectation that the US was supposed to hand him Israel on a platter. Abbas could now add one more item to the long list of “no’s” he delivered to President Obama, about which he apparently prides himself.

That last remark makes reference to an article in Maan in which Abbas brags to Hamas, listing the times he’s said “no” to the Americans. Arafat did the same thing when he came back from Camp David. For the Palestinians in their zero-sum world, it’s a win-win: say not to compromise without being blamed internationally, brag at home about defying the world. In Arab political culture, “no” means honor; in Western culture it means failing your people.

In laying the blame on the United States, the Palestinian senior leadership publicly claimed that the former refused to submit a written proposal. Americans who were directly involved in the negotiations tell a very different story. According to them, when Abu Mazen came to see Obama on March 17, 2014, Erakat specifically asked not to be handed a written document, lest he be required to share and debate it with some Palestinian colleagues. Instead, the framework document was dictated to him verbatim, so as to afford him a degree of deniability.

In other words, use the “I need to be strengthened not weakened in the eyes of my community,” to avoid detailed discussions, then,when the negotiations collapse, blame the US for not providing details.

American response to Palestinian rejection: Increase pressure on Israel.

Already in early March, sensing deadlock, the U.S. side began gravitating toward extending negotiations for an additional nine months, to save the appearance of success (ie to save face). Even though the Palestinians did not respond to their substantive proposals, U.S. negotiators put great pressure on the Israeli side to feed the extension of negotiations with gestures, thus rewarding the Palestinians for their obduracy and punishing Israel for their flexibility. On the table now was a formula under which Israel would implement the release of the fourth tranche of prisoners (scheduled for the end of March), but this time without the accompanying settlement approvals in the West Bank, in other words straight concession, not quid pro quo. On top of this, Israel was to release an additional 400 Palestinian prisoners with no “blood on their hands,” significantly restrain settlement activity in the West Bank during the next negotiating period, transfer some powers and responsibilities to the PA in Area C (adjacent to Palestinian cities in Area A)—and more. It soon felt like a bazaar, with the Palestinians adding more and more to their cart of insatiable demands.

I was on a panel about the Iran deal at Boston University in 2015, and when I suggested that Obama was being had by some very clever negotiators, I was accused of orientalism: “Not the ‘Oh those Orientals at the shuk’ schtick again!”

It didn’t “feel like the bazaar,” it was the bazaar, and the US and Israel were being taken for a ride, for a change.

Pushing the limits: Palestinians make Prisoner Release a test of Israel’s good will. From the outset, the negotiations agreed to Israeli prisoner releases as markers on the path to an agreement, signs of good will from the Israelis and rewards to the Palestinians for their contributions. It became a quid pro quo of the Palestinian agreement to pretend that the negotiations were going somewhere and they they were not planning to go to international forums to find the recognition that they could/would not get from these doomed negotiations (ie without reciprocal concessions). At this point, after Abbas had said no, and the Americans took it as a sign they should squeeze more out of the Israelis, the fourth prisoner release became the focus of efforts.

Netanyahu tried hard to broker a deal including the release of Pollard, soon to be paroled anyway. Abbas made general promises about trying “his best” to approve the deal with his leadership. But when Kerry came to Ramallah on March 31, to see him personally, Abbas

avoided meeting him, claiming that he was tired and went to sleep. We were stuck in a typical catch-22 situation. (!)

Just how badly does Kerry need to be dissed before he gets the message? Not in time for tired Abbas’ next move.

The very next day, April 1, it all blew up in our faces. In the evening, as Netanyahu was toiling to secure a cabinet majority for the deal, Abbas [signed an agreement with Hamas] and ceremoniously presented letters seeking accession in 15 UN and international bodies as a state. The formal pretext was that Israel failed to implement its commitment on time, so the PA was freed of its own commitments to the process. Palestinian negotiating strategy: assure failure, blame failure on Israel; use it to justify breaking commitments. Yet it was abundantly clear that the PA was using the delay as an excuse to advance a strategic goal of promoting statehood outside negotiations—13 of the 15 conventions could only be joined by states. Erekat had long been preparing that option and only awaited the right moment. Shades of Arafat’s using Sharon’s visit to (what he thought was) the Temple Mount to launch the “Al Aqsa Intifada.” Notwithstanding the comic relief of watching the PA asking to join the anti-corruption convention, the Palestinians evaded our questions as to why they had never enacted legislation to address any of the noble goals covered by the conventions. And no one was going to make them answer. Of course, it did not help that on the same day a “hidden hand”—all eyes were fixed on Israel’s right-wing Minister of Housing—re-issued existing tenders for 708 housing units in a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem. Yet Kerry’s famous “poof” comment, which framed the announcement as the reason for the crisis, was way out of proportion.

Kerry, saved by the bell, got to blame it on Israel. Poof! They killed the mannequin and foiled my messianic ambitions, the bastards!

At the first meeting of Israelis and Palestinians the following day the Israelis were in for a surprise on how the Americans had been negotiating with the Palestinians.

While comparing notes, we were told by the Palestinians how on nine separate occasions in recent days the U.S. side had given them specific hours at which Israel’s cabinet would meet to vote on the prisoner release. Our jaws dropped. Nobody on our side ever determined a specific hour for the cabinet meeting, as it was contingent on first fulfilling the above-mentioned Israeli requirements. To this day, I am bewildered by this episode.

Oh dear. Not a clue? How about, the Americans were desperately trying to appease the Palestinians, and in order to get them to continue the charade, they had to make dramatic claims about how much they were getting from the Israelis. So even as they promised much to the Palestinians, they asked nothing from them. The talks fell apart because “both sides” couldn’t even agree on how to extend them, the Israelis no longer willing to make concessions, the Palestinians adding further conditions.

Herzog assesses Kerry generously:

On the U.S. side, which played a dominant role in all aspects of the process, Kerry should be lauded for his commitment, determination, and intelligence, and for his indispensable role in propelling the process, even though it never stood a chance and he wasted everyone’s time to give a victory to those who stood by and let him and the Israelis spin. He definitely does not deserve the slander directed at him by some Israelis. His self-impose mission was unenviable in that he was struggling to negotiate simultaneously with Israelis, Palestinians, and the White House. Still, he did not fully grasp (have a clue to) the psychology of the parties or the not-so delicate nuances of their relations.

On the contrary, Kerry behaved like a possessed (messianic) fool from start to finish: he learned nothing, and so he nursed his grudges against Israel whom he blamed, while letting the Palestinians off scot free. But his truly odious behavior — what earned him the “slander directed at him by some Israelis” came when he then proceeded to make things infinitely worse, first with Samantha Power at the UN (Resolution 2334), and then with his deplorable speech, in which he blamed Israeli settlements for the failure.

Question: If a phobia is an irrational fear, what’s the term for an irrational lack of fear?

Answer: Stupidity.

And the Oscar for Own-Goal Diplomacy and Astounding (messianically-induced) Stupidity combined with mean-spirited scapegoating goes to John Kerry, who richly deserves criticism not for killing the mannequin as some commentators on Herzog’s piece claim, but for insisting it was alive and blaming Israel for killing it.

Epilogue

In his conclusion, Herzog comments on Abbas’ strategy:

As far as Abbas is concerned, deep into the process he was still oscillating between three strategies at the same time: negotiating with Israel and the United States, promoting statehood through the international community, and reconciling with Hamas. In his mind, they were not mutually exclusive.

For Herzog, Abbas is torn between the three “deep in the process.” Hopefully this is more diplomatic nicety. Does it not even enter his mind that Abbas used all three strategies with deliberation from the start: he pretended to negotiate, used Hamas to doom the talks, and prepared to go to the international community with failed talks as his excuse.

Maybe it’s best not to realize you’ve been played for a fool by both your alleged negotiating partners. Who knows, you might get indignant.

“For Herzog, Abbas is torn between the three “deep in the process.” Hopefully this is more diplomatic nicety. Does it not even enter his mind that Abbas used all three strategies with deliberation from the start: he pretended to negotiate, used Hamas to doom the talks, and prepared to go to the international community with failed talks as his excuse.”

Alas, this is not “diplomatic nicety” on Herzog’s part. This is what Herzog absolutely believes.

Indeed, the “peace process” was from the start an elaborate—a masterful—hoax. An extraordinarily cunning and effective strategy. A superbly-wrought, modern variation on the Trojan horse.

And it is precisely your searing comment which must make one wonder just how much Herzog—for all his experience and intelligence—was/is able to truly understand about the “peace process” to which he has devoted a large part of his life and effort.

To be sure, there are still people who are absolutely convinced that peace is possible, that mutual accommodation is reachable…

…that the Palestinians do not wish to destroy the State of Israel…

…and that if peace does not happen, then Israel is entirely responsible (or almost entirely so) for its absence.

Which absence further fuels Israel’s depiction as a rogue and illegitimate entity, hence lending further justification to its erasure. Indeed, Arafat was/is a genius….

“…when I suggested that Obama was being had by some very clever negotiators…”

Afraid I must disagree with this view. (Though from a certain perspective it does look, clearly, to be the case. Alas, it doesn’t go far enough….)

No, Obama was not being “‘had’ by some clever negotiators”.

Rather, Obama was using the perfectly acceptable—even laudable—framework of so-called “negotiations” to provide the mullahs with as much power, money (much of which would end up in Russian hands), influence and leverage as he possibly could.

Such that the Iranian “Deal” was not a deal at all, but the total and utter capitulation of Obama’s rogue government to the Iranians, under the guise—the smokescreen—of “negotiations”.

Under the guise of a “deal”.

To be sure, one cannot even call it a “totaly and utter capitulation”.

What it was, really, was the alignment—the alliance—of Obama’s rogue government with the Iranians.

Nothing less.

Obama knew not even he could get away with a genuine alliance, or a realignment, of this kind. So he used the subterfuge of “negotiations” to basically give away the farm—the farm he willingly wished to give away.

So that, yes, perceptive people (such as yourself) would be able to label these negotiations “feckless” or “irresponsible” or “foolish” or “an incomprehensible catastrophe”; but they would never imagine—would never dare to imagine—that such feckless, irresponsible and/or failed negotiations were themselves a smokescreen for the Obama administration’s under-the-table alliance with Iran.

Why, one might ask, would Obama wish to ally with Iran?

To which there are several answers, some of them having to do with Obama’s views of America, and some of them having to do with Obama’s views of “America’s best ally in the Middle East”.

One might start by having another look at the cartoon you printed above. And then one might move on to pondering what exactly was/is the meaning of “fundamentally transforming” America….

Finally, one ask what Obama’s relationship was/is to Jeremiah Wright, Rashid Khalidi and Edward Said, followed up by some research on the relationship that Valerie Jarett—and Ben Rhodes—had/have with Iran.

(And ponder, all the while pinching oneself that one must not ever succumb to conspiracy theories…. while keeping in mind that for so many American Jews, Obama is golden while Trump is the devil….)

of course neither arafat nor abbas ever wanted to reach a peace agreement with Israel. Arafat accepted Oslo because of his weak international position, such as being on the outs with many Arab states on account of his betrayal of Kuwait in favor of Saddam Hussein, and other reasons.

But even when he was weak, the USA protected him, such as sending an emergency medical team to save him when his plane went down in the desert traveling between Sudan and Libya about 1991, as I recall. So why do you, Richard, assume good faith on the part of the US Government institutions like the State Department and cia? After all, during the Shoah, Saint FDR held back early information about the Shoah going on and later refused to admit any significant number of Jewish refugees or to stop the mass murder process by bombing the RR tracks to the death camps and bombing gas chambers and crematoria. Has the basic underlying motivations of the State Dept or cia changed since then [I know that the cia was not set up until 1947, so read “intelligence community” if you like].
On a technical point, you write “a cognitively egocentric notion.” Don’t you mean “ethnocentric”? Why egocentric?

good question about cognitive… c. egocentrism is an actual clinical term first coined to describe the attitude of teenage boys who assume everyone thinks of sex 24/7 like they do. cognitive ethnocentrism is not bad when applied to the massive block that people have understanding other cultures.

as for the behavior of state dept., i think kerry represents a new (post-60s) phenomenon of people who sincerely believe they’re helping the jews, who believe their own verbiage, and get enraged when jews don’t go along. in a sense it’s a secular version of christian anger in response to having been nice in trying to convert the jews and getting – inconceivably! – rebuffed.

Holocaust Guilt vs. Holocaust Shame: On the Crisis of Western Civilization This is a longer version of what appeared in the Tablet. Richard Landes, Jerusalem @richard_landes [email protected]mail.com Read More »